Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Fwd: Announcement: New editor engagement experiments team!
- Original Message - From: Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 10:57 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Fwd: Announcement: New editor engagement experiments team! On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 3:49 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: And it turns out the new editors often assume the templates are completely bot-generated. That is: the editors using templates are, literally, failing the Turing test. I know the solution is not to just stop using templates. I think it should be given serious consideration. I realise why Twinkle and Huggle exist, but they turn Wikipedia into a first-person shooter with the newbies as the targets. I suggest that this is not the sort of gamification that is useful. If anyone wants to help work on these template-related issues, Maryana and I are still in the midst of work on this in a couple wikis... I don't want to flood the thread with a report on its status, but let me know if you want to join in our not-so-secret effort to make the current user talk template system more human. Steven I don't know what you're doing, or where, but it seems to me that templates often seem to be trying to do too much. One solution might be to have some generics for particular issues with a mandatory freetext field, in which the templater would be required to explain exactly what is wrong with the templatee's edit, in the templater's opinion. I realise this might be a hostage to fortune in possibly amplifying discord, but good templaters should be happy to help and explain their reversions, and it would focus the minds of those others who issue templates willy-nilly. I think the above comment about Twinkle and Huggle is perfectly valid; after all, if you can push a button rather than engage and educate an editor, those tools make it all to easy so to do. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Will Beback
And yet on the other hand, we have myself, User:Rodhullandemu, who has/had over 1000,000 edits, including 6 GAs and 21 DYKs, not only blocked, but also banned, on the basis of a dispute with one editor which has been subsequently vindicated in part by ArbCom, and some airy-fairy nonsense attributable only to malice based on forged Usenet posts and a complete failure to assume good faith. To coin a phrase, something is rotten in the state of ArbCom, and the sooner this becomes more widely realised the better. The Foundation should take responsibility for abuse of power at the highest level in any of its projects, including Jimmy Wales. Will Beback was entitled to at least mitigation on the basis of his sterling contributions to a project in which he believed; so was I, but I didn't get any. Thank some deity or other that I can still contribute to Commons when I am able to do so, but as far as Wikipedia is concerned, the lunatics *have* taken over the asylum. - Original Message - From: Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2012 4:31 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Will Beback On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 6:15 AM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote: We appear to have a problem with Arbcom. We have an editor who has contributed significantly to Wikipedia over the previous 7 years, making more than 100,000 edits and generating a couple of featured articles. Than in a vote of 8 to 4 he is block indefinitely for issues related to a specific religious movement. Reading between the lines of the Arbcom decision - necessary because most/all of the evidence is secret an off-Wikipedia - Will Beback framed an editor he opposed over content issues, got him banned indefinitely, and tried to cover it all up. Regardless of whether you have 10k edits or 100k edits, this is indef-ban worthy behavior. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Image filter brainstorming: Personal filter lists
1: pedophiles are being blocked even if they are not advocating, if I remember correctly 2: they are blocked because their behaviour on the site is agains our principles Either they are advocating, or they are not. Either they are inappropriately trying to contact minors, or they are not. Either they are editing articles with a pedophile POV, or they are not. In any case, nobody seems to have the wit and depth of understanding to make the distinction, and it seems Wikimedia would rather not take the risk, arguably for fear of lurid and uninformed media exposure. As a result, some perfectly innocent editors at whom that label has been thrown, with little or no cogent evidence, have been banned without any recourse whatsoever. What pedophiles may imagine isn't acceptable to most people, but unless they follow up their desires on Wikimedia projects, there should be no reason for the Foundation or its various projects to take any action whatsoever. I'm quite sure that we have editors with criminal convictions, maybe even for homicide, and almost certainly some who have served terms of imprisonment, yet we don't seem to impose any sanctions apart from this one issue. And whereas criminals, by definition, have commited offences, it isn't also the case that pedophiles have also committed offences. In short, the current position (whatever it is) is a pusillanimous stance to maintain and not one that should be acceptable in any environment claiming to be a defender of knowledge, free or otherwise, and consistently adopting multiple policies that together predicate an intellectual purity. Some clarity would be welcome here. - Original Message - From: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 8:56 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Image filter brainstorming: Personal filter lists On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Andre Engels andreeng...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 7:03 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: Am I being dense, or are you being silly? Blocking advocacy from a site with a NPOV policy is a bajillion miles from being censorship. It may be a bajillion miles, I still think it's closer to it than giving the possibility to people to decide what they themselves see or not see is. Apart from that, pedophiles are being blocked even if they are not advocating, if I remember correctly. In the absolute, to follow teh rather perverse logci, No. Pedophiles are not blocked for their views, they are blocked because their behaviour on the site is agains our principles, very much like why we block people who by their actions want to censor wikipedia. -- -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia ideology
I'm assuming that this is the Peter Damian who is also knol.google.com/k/edward-buckner/edward-buckner/2u2a5qlvdgh8h/1# since he signs as Edward, rather than a troll seeking to impersonate the banned Wikipedia editor of the same name, for nefarious purposes. In either case, I have little confidence that this book would achieve an audience sufficient to make the effort worthwhile, except on an extremely personal basis. Sometimes it's good to write things down if only to let off steam, but to expect an audience in this case seems to be a triumph of hope over experience. By all means, write your book. But don't expect Wikipedia to crash to the ground as a result of your revelations. I, for one, have no interest in participating, not least because the OP wasn't to wp-en-l but to the Foundation list, and that smacks of a desperate, if limp, attempt at some sort of improper meta-leverage. KillerChihuahua wrote: - Original Message - From: geni geni...@gmail.com On 23 October 2011 09:16, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote: Greetings, I am writing a book on the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement, focusing on its 'history of ideas'. Would any Wikipedians be prepared to be interviewed for this? Obviously long-standing Wikipedians would be a focus but I am interested in anyone who is involved in the movement because of passionately held convictions or 'ideology'. You know it would in most cases have been considered an act of good faith to mention your long standing antipathy to wikipedia. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 6 reasons we're in another book-burning periodin history
geni wrote: On 14 October 2011 21:10, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: I love Cracked. It's Wikipedia with dick jokes. http://www.cracked.com/article_19453_6-reasons-were-in-another-book-burning-period-in-history_p2.html To be ha ha only serious for a moment, this touches on why we all bother doing this. Doubtful. Heck to some extent its probably our fault. Why bother holding books on say warships when Wikipedia already provides an unreasonable amount of information about them. So out go the old warship annuals. Except they don't even bother to remove them from the catalog (me bitter?) My view is that they should be kept, at least to assist in applying verifiability policies, and if necessary, assessing neutrality. Not every source is online, nor is necessarily going to be, even with increasing digitisation of original sources. Copyright time limits mean that it may be many years before they are eligible for Wikisource, or Commons, and in the meantime, we seem to be limited to online extracts, citations in other works, or the originals. This is particularly true of ephemeral media such as newspapers, although I am aware that the British Library only has issues going back to 1840 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Library#Newspapers), but that might be enough for most purposes. There is relatively little destruction of actual information going on. As well as a lot of the stuff being fiction the non-fiction stuff is mostly one of multiple copies. I agree, but we have no way of knowing. However, lots of non-fiction is never going to achieve notability, so that may not be a great loss. The problem is it does cause is that the information is increasingly locked up. Paper archives have for the last decade or so one of the loopholes in payways. With the removal of such archives the paywalls become more controlling. Similarly, state-controlled/funded archives are vulnerable, in the extreme, to manipulation and/or destruction. And in the UK at least, all significant archives (British Library/local libraries/universities) are pretty dependent on public funding. Without a truly independent, privately funded, more or less complete archive of everything, there is always a risk of attrition for one reason or another. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] all images on/off function
church.of.emacs.ml wrote: I don't read your posts, because (a) I don't trust attachments anyway, and (b) if you have anything worthwhile to say, and are competent at interacting on a mailing list, I see no reason why you should not be able to hit the reply button in your mail program, and it actually reaches its target. Sorry if I've missed anything important you might have said, but my inbox is full enough already. Cheers. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] all images on/off function
I use Outlook Express. But, for some reason, some posts do not seem to be rendered as they should be, whether they are attachments or otherwise. Maybe that's my fault, but to be honest, I have other stuff to be concerned about, e.g. my current work on Commons, so with the best will in the world, I'll leave it Cheers Thomas Dalton wrote: Church's email worked fine for me. The only attachment was a signature, the content itself was in normal email form. What mail client are you using? On Oct 7, 2011 12:27 AM, Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: church.of.emacs.ml wrote: I don't read your posts, because (a) I don't trust attachments anyway, and (b) if you have anything worthwhile to say, and are competent at interacting on a mailing list, I see no reason why you should not be able to hit the reply button in your mail program, and it actually reaches its target. Sorry if I've missed anything important you might have said, but my inbox is full enough already. Cheers. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia
Mike Godwin wrote: Kat Walsh writes: I am happy to see the Italian community behind the opposition to the proposed law because I do think it's contrary to what Wikimedia does, and to see that there is consensus among the Italian community to do something drastic; there will be a far greater effect on the Italian wiki than a short blockage if bad laws are passed. (And part of me--the part that's been around for a billion years--is thrilled to see a community coming to such a decision on their own, via what seems like a reasonable process, without waiting for approval or support.) Speaking only for myself, this precisely reflects my views. I applaud the Italian Wikipedians' decision to challenge this law so directly. But I'm not sure about denying access completely for several days. I think the action that was done may be too much, that maybe something could have been done to generate as much attention without cutting off access as much. I understand Kat's doubts here, but my intuitive reaction, having dealt with government censorship of various sorts for more than 20 years, is that more dramatic action is most likely to be effective in persuading a government to change course. Governments that want to censor -- like the USA, the United Kingdom (through its public-private partnership), and now the Italian government -- tend to build up a lot of inertia behind their policy choices. It's very hard to get a government to change its mind. You have to challenge government officials in a big, dramatic (and usually longer-lasting) way to get their attention and make them responsive. When you say big and dramatic, what level of bribe did you have in mind for Italian officials? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blackout at Italian Wikipedia
Mark wrote: On 10/5/11 1:50 AM, Ryan Kaldari wrote: The WMF isn't allowed to lobby for or against legislation, per our 501c3 non-profit status in the US. This is not necessarily true for chapters though, and definitely not true for the communities. Somewhat true, but not a red line. The IRS gives this wonderfully vague formulation: A 501(c)(3) organization may engage in some lobbying, but too much lobbying activity risks loss of tax-exempt status. In addition, organizations may conduct educational meetings, prepare and distribute educational materials, or otherwise consider public policy issues in an educational manner without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status. For example, perhaps, in suitable cases, Wikimedia could issue factual statements about proposed legislation likely to affect its operations, with a neutral legal analysis of if and how the legislation would do so. -Mark I don't think that there is a distinction between lobbying and campaigning. It cannot be assumed that a charitable organisation should not be able to protect its own status, because I think the law should assume that right. The issue is to how that is to be achieved, and by what means, and that is where a political dimension arises. Thus far, it is by words and gestures. Politicians, at a practical level, are sometimes more used to more physical expressions of dissent. I doubt it will come to that in this case. However, I would be surprised if the message did not reach its intended target in this instance. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters
David Levy wrote: MZMcBride wrote: I'd forgotten all about Toby. That was largely a joke, wasn't it? Do not try to define Toby. Toby might be a joke or he might be serious. Toby might be watching over us right now or he might be a bowl of porridge. Toby might be windmills or he might be giants. Don't fight about Toby. Let Toby be there. Toby loves us. Toby hates us. Toby always wins. David Levy Toby or not Toby? Is that the question? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Experiment: Blurring all images on Wikipedia
Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote: Hi, A while ago I made a bookmarklet that blurs images in articles on the english Wikipedia and reveals them when the user hovers over the image. I now had a chance to test this as a skin.js extension. For a start, users would have to opt in to this, which may not be appropriate for casual readers brought to us from Google and other external links. I'm not sure it's a good idea to make it a default for unregistered users, many, if not most, of whom, might not want to be presented with a pre-filtered version of Wikipedia, and would be surprised to be so presented. It also presents a slippery slope argument in that nobody is realistically qualified, nor would want to be tasked with, drawing the line as to what images should and should not be treated thus. A similar argument applies to textual content of articles; however we try to achieve neutrality, it seems that there will always be some POV-pushers who will argue the toss ad infinitum, and we don't accommodate them. Neither should we accommodate those who do not understand that a value-neutral, world value, is not the same as their value. These people have their own texts, and I think that our response should be that they are welcome to them. Nobody is being forced to use Wikipedia, after all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BlurredImages/vector.js http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BlurredImages/vector.css To try this out you would have to copy or import this code into your own skin.js and skin.css files which are available e.g. under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/vector.js http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/vector.css This only works in recent desktop versions of Opera and Firefox and only on devices where you can easily hover. It may show some images that it ought to blur for boring reasons. Spoilers ahead if you want to try it. Browsing around with that is quite interesting. Some findings: it is a bit annoying when UI elements (say clipart in maintenance templates) are blurred. The same goes for small logo-like graphics, say actual logos, flags, coat of arms, and actual text, like rotated table headers. I did expect that blurred maps would be annoying, but I've not found them to be. Take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagebüll as example, the marker and text are overlayed so they are not blurred, and I can recognize the shape of Germany fine. I note that there is a perceptual problem if you click around to explore how blurring affects the experience as that does not reflect what a user would do. I noticed that my impression changed a lot when switching from actually paying some attention to the articles to randomly moving to the next article just looking at the images. Pages, or parts of pages, that largely lack content (say all you get on a screen is lone line of lead, table of contents, and image plus map on the side, or a stub that has four sentences and an image). There it's a bit odd, in stark contrast to an article like BDSM where I felt blurring is very unobtrusive. Another thing I've noticed is that I pay a whole lot more attention to the images when I focus them, decide to hover over it, reveal it, and then look at it, maybe read the caption and so on. I also noticed I do not really bother to read the captions before I hover and rather decide based on the blurred picture itself (I ignore most captions usually, so this is unsurprising). There are also many surprises, where images do not come out in the clear as you would have expected from the blur. My impression is that it actually makes it much easier to think about if an image is well placed where it is. If there are several images, you can focus more easily on just the one, and you remove to some degree the status quo effect, where you may be biased to agree with the placement because someone already placed it there. Images where red tones are used a lot seem to be rather distracting when they are blurred. Blue and green and yellow and black and white and so on are no problem, and the red tones are no problem when the image is crisp. Not sure what's up with that, I have not noticed this before. It would of course be possible to manipulate the colours in addition to the blurring. Largely black and white bar charts and tree diagrams and illustrations of data like them are also annoying when blurred, in part because there is inconsistency as some of them are not blurred because they are made not as image but using HTML constructs. They are perhaps too much like text so unlike a photo with many different colors they are harder to just ignore using one's banner blindness skills. There is also a noise factor to this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction for instance compared to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code -- in the former the graphic in the infobox is fine blurred while the latter irks me when blurred. Generally though
Re: [Foundation-l] Three short films about Wikipedia
Kim Bruning wrote: On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 02:02:20PM +0200, Lennart Guldbrandsson wrote: Okay. I hope that I didn't stifle your comment, though. One idea: Feel free to dub in your own voices if you want voices. That could be very cool! Best wishes, Lennart Actually, if this is going to be shown at conferences and such, it might be handier to add subtitles? :-) sincerely, Kim Bruning Seriously, dubbing dialogue, although *kewl*, would be a triumph of hope over experience, and technically and practically infeasible within a sensible timescale, but when it comes to subtitles, the question has to be in how many languages? A good starting point is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_languages, which has Arabic Chinese (Mandarin) English French Russian Spanish (Castilian) as core, but Bengali Hindustani Portuguese Esperanto as proposed. Of these, I would regard languages of the Indian subcontinent as being of higher priority, since (IME) speakers of Spanish can get to grips wth Portuguese at least at a basic level, and Esperanto does not seem to have had the penetration it might deserve. What is perhaps surprising is that Japanese is missing from both these lists, but then perhaps most Japanese are also pretty competent in English these days. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Spamming from this list
wrote: Could people on this list please refrain from spamming this email with requests to join LinkIn (and that includes Mike Godwin), as I have no interest in joining. Thank you. That's an artefact of having a semi-open mailing list; I've been subscribed here and on other WMF mailing lists for nearly four years, and the incidence of spam seems to me to be be minimal and short-lived; it follows that it's not a great problem, but if you find it to be so, your mail reader may be configurable to exclude such posts. HTH. Phil ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Image filter
wrote: On 24/09/2011 22:46, David Gerard wrote: On 24 September 2011 22:40, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: The last I heard the German people, as expressed through their lawmakers, DO NOT want their kids looking at porn or images that are excessively violent. They go so far as periodically getting Google to filter the search results for Germans. Analogously, tell me about your personal endorsement of the Digital Economy Act and justify each provision. Last I heard in the real world Germans did not want their kids looking a images of porn or excessive violence online. That sites that were targeted at Germans required age filters, that Google was frequently asked to remove pages from theor index, and that ISPs were instructed to disallow access to such sites. Under such circumstances the opinions of 300 self selecting Germans is unlikely to be indicative of German opinion. Unless I've missed something of importance, the stance of parents in Germany is little different from those in any other country. The USA and UK have both tried, and failed, to impose such censorship, even through licensing or grading schemes; but the bottom line is that the internet doesn't work that way, and in my experience there is no common denominator jurisdiction that has the will or the power to impose any restrictions on a global medium. Local jurisdictions may attempt to do so, but experience over the last thirty years tends to suggest that such restrictions are easily circumvented. That's why TOR, to name only one, exists. Optimistically, global censorship is just not going to happen. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Scope of this mailing list
Carcharoth wrote: On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 1:13 AM, Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: snip [[User:Rodhullandemu]] - still flying the flag for Wikipedia, for some inexplicable reason. Does this refer to this? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Rodhullandemudiff=431917947oldid=431917436 I'm not going to comment further, but I think others who respond to your posts should be aware of this. Actually, you did comment further, and on a personal level; see below. And the lack of response in nearly nine hours to your post amply demonstrates, to me at least, how you seems to have missed the point. What the scope of this mailing list should be (given your recent posts on BLP matters, all copied to Jimmy Wales), is something I'd like to see discussed by the list moderators and those posting here. If there is a reason or rationale behind the posts, attempting to demonstrate something, then fine, but it would be courteous to state that rather then just post randomly like this. Starting at the back, and working forward, my posts are not random. They are carefully selected examples based on my experience as (currently) a reader of Wikipedia and my responses to what I found. I take it as obvious that if I can read these articles, so can their subjects, and if they don't like what they see, making appropriate noises, or (in extreme cases) litigating against the Foundation. We have BLP policies for that reason, and while I see editors on Wikipedia competing to provide articles about bacon(!), fiddling about with templates that are ostensibly fit for purpose as they are[1], and still arguing about trivial issues, nobody seems to be committed to clearing backlogs of articles that actually provide legal, if not journalistic, risk for WP and its parent. And there are myriad similar examples. My personal reasons are less important than making sure that this project does, and can, continue without unnecessary diversions into legalities- perhaps I've been spending too much time reading up Commons policies of late, one of which (to paraphrase) says that just because nobody will notice a copyright violation is no reason to ignore policy- and so it should be with any policy on any WMF project that may have consequences for the Foundation. I am available to discuss any non-apparent personal motivations PRIVATELY by email rather than on a public list. But don't assume that I don't have our project's viability at heart. As a lawyer by training, qualifications, experience, and observation, I've seen many operations thought to be acting blithely within the law crumble to the ground when the courts have upheld unexpected, but valid challenges. I'm not suggesting this is likely in our case; but neither is it beyond the bounds of possibility, and at least if I bring risks to the attention of others, my hands are clean. Hope that helps. [1] and consuming unnecessary resources in TfDs ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Scope of this mailing list
Carcharoth wrote: On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:31 AM, Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: Starting at the back, and working forward, my posts are not random. They are carefully selected examples based on my experience as (currently) a reader of Wikipedia and my responses to what I found. I take it as obvious that if I can read these articles, so can their subjects, and if they don't like what they see, making appropriate noises, or (in extreme cases) litigating against the Foundation. What you seem to be arguing for is a mailing list dedicated to the issues you raise. The point I was making is that re-purposing this mailing list (wiki-en-l) for that purpose is unlikely to succeed (or be desirable), and that is what I meant by references to this being a bit random. In other words, the venue(s) you are chosing for raising these matters seem a bit random. What you seem to be looking for is a mailing list version of the BLP Noticeboard. I've copied the WMF mailing list on this post (as you added that mailing list when you replied), but I won't see any replies to that mailing list as I'm not subscribed there. I've removed Jimmy from the cc list, as the posts to public mailing lists should be sufficient. Carcharoth OK, Chris. Let's see what happens next. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Request: WMF commitment as a long term culturalarchive?
Kim Bruning wrote: On Thu, Jun 02, 2011 at 02:24:37PM +0200, Ziko van Dijk wrote: Hello Fae, There should be no explicit statement because the WMF holds it self-evident to preserve. That reminds me of something O:-) Perhaps something like this? We, the wikimedia movement, hold these truths to be self evident: * That neutrality is the path to knowledge * That all knowledge should be available to all people no matter when or wherever they want it, and be free to study, free to share, free to improve * And that this state of affairs should hold in perpetuity, so that our children, and their children and etc. can benefit. Might need some editing to make it perfect. Meta someplace? You've missed out That all editors are created equal, a palpable falsehood. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 86% of german users disagree with the introduction of the personal image filter
Fae wrote: On 19 September 2011 17:42, M. Williamson node...@gmail.com wrote: A dead human bodies category that excludes mummies because we're not idiots is, by definition, not neutral. I agree, sounds like the only solution is that we pour away a hefty chunk of those charitably donated WMF millions in a few hundred thousand variations of the categories and anyone that likes, say, Bain's version of common sense can read BainChildFriendlyWiki.org instead of the horrid open Wikipedia with it's dreadful nudity, mutilated bodies, heresies and images of educational and cultural notability. Alternatively anyone who has common sense can take Wikipedia for free and hack it about in their own time and cash in by selling it to schools that would like to benefit from a *guaranteed* child friendly and religiously tolerant (out of date) version. Hasn't this already happened, albeit on a voluntary basis, and with free distribution? http://schools-wikipedia.org/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Fw: [[Paul Rooney Partnership]]
Phil Nash wrote: Nothing to make this firm notable within [[WP:CORP]], except that they've been criticised for their compensation-seeking techniques; well, hot dog, that isn't unusual in the post ambulance-chasing culture of some law firms since solicitors were deregulated from advertising in the early 1980s. I know Paul Rooney of old, and he was never the best criminal advocate amongst the solicitors who practised in Liverpool when I also practised law there; but this article is little more than a [[WP:COATRACK]] for his methods, even if it passes the [[WP:N|notability]] threshold- which, I have already opined, it does not. This article should go, as an attack page. Cheers, [[User:Rodhullandemu]] - still flying the flag for Wikipedia, for some inexplicable reason. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 6:04 AM, Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: Sue Gardner wrote: On 12 September 2011 18:15, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 12 September 2011 23:45, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Now: what do we need to do to make Wikinews better and more useful? What are the costs and technical or other work involved? Very little. Mostly wikinews is misstargeted. Yet another website rewriting AP reports is never going to draw crowds. Wikinews needed original research and never really had very much of it. It is also operating in an extremely crowded market where as wikipedia had the field pretty much to itself when it started. Jimmy said once that part of the reason Wikipedia works so well is because everybody knows what an encyclopedia article is supposed to look like. Practical experience on a day-to-day basis would suggest that this is unduly optimistic. We are failing to attract new editors who can be, or wish to be, educated into what an encyclopedia article is supposed to look like, and are discarding those experienced editors who do. Even those who remain but are becoming increasingly disillusioned with all the nonsense that goes on will eventually leave, or create a fork of Wikipedia, and to be honest, if I had the money right now, I'd do it myself, and cast ArbCom in its present form into the bottomless pit. I used to care about Wikipedia, as did others, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to do so. If money is the problem, I can solve that. I recently came into an inheritance. Thanks for your interest; it isn't the only expression of support to have reached me. A *fresh* version of Wikipedia is obviously a major step to take, and I have to consider and reconcile the various inputs I've received, and am still receiving, and formulate a proposal document that is going to address the issues, and of course, it will be open for discussion to those who are interested. My current preference is for a partnership-based model, yet one able to generate revenue and still largely remain within the original objectives of Wikipedia. Squaring the circle may not be possible in this case, and good editors will be lost. Meanwhile, only time will tell whether it works, and that depends on achieving the proper mechanism for moving forward, and sticking to it. I'm hopefully moving premises shortly, so will be unlikely to be able to fully commit my efforts for about a month; but at least that gives time for interested parties to comment, since this is not something that should be rushed into. However, my spare time, such as it is, will be devoted to this project. Regards. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked
Sue Gardner wrote: On 12 September 2011 18:15, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 12 September 2011 23:45, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Now: what do we need to do to make Wikinews better and more useful? What are the costs and technical or other work involved? Very little. Mostly wikinews is misstargeted. Yet another website rewriting AP reports is never going to draw crowds. Wikinews needed original research and never really had very much of it. It is also operating in an extremely crowded market where as wikipedia had the field pretty much to itself when it started. Jimmy said once that part of the reason Wikipedia works so well is because everybody knows what an encyclopedia article is supposed to look like. Practical experience on a day-to-day basis would suggest that this is unduly optimistic. We are failing to attract new editors who can be, or wish to be, educated into what an encyclopedia article is supposed to look like, and are discarding those experienced editors who do. Even those who remain but are becoming increasingly disillusioned with all the nonsense that goes on will eventually leave, or create a fork of Wikipedia, and to be honest, if I had the money right now, I'd do it myself, and cast ArbCom in its present form into the bottomless pit. I used to care about Wikipedia, as did others, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to do so. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats
MZMcBride wrote: Jimmy Wales wrote: On 9/7/11 9:15 AM, Milos Rancic wrote: I think that damage produced by thiswhatever should be localized. The target is English Wikipedia, Board is not especially interested in other Wikipedia editions and other projects in English; which means that it should be localized on English Wikipedia. Milos, you are way out of line here. The board is not especially interested in English Wikipedia, and indeed, very little of our discussion of this feature has any particular relevance to English Wikipedia. It's not out of line to suggest that Wikimedia is especially interested in the English Wikipedia. It's _indisputable_ at the Wikimedia Foundation level. Whether it's as true at the Wikimedia Board level is a bit more arguable, though there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that it's equally true there. A cursory look at the Wikimedia Board resolutions is pretty damning. When the Wikimedia Foundation places the English Wikipedia on a pedestal and treats all other wiki projects/families as peripheral, it's not at all unexpected that occasionally people will vent frustration at this. MZMcBride I think it's more the case that Wikipedia is the most prominent project within the WM umbrella, and therefore, it attracts commensurate attention. Whereas I have only slight experience of other language WPs than en:wp, my take is that when local problems arise, the natural focus for complaint seems to be Jimbo's en:wp Talk page rather than a Meta page. en:wp editors quite rightly have directed those complaints to more appropriate venues. Whether this is due to local wp problems, I cannot tell. Whether en:wp should be regarded as a paragon of virtue w.r.t. WM seems to me to be extremely moot; being the most trafficked project within the WM umbrella, it clearly is going to be the cockpit for some disputes, perhaps more those based on policy rather than content, and it is, like any sub-project, self-governing, and the Foundation does not step in, in either an advisory, administrative, admonitory, or judicial capacity, and perhaps nor should it. It would be wonderful if en:wp could be *the* model of behaviour, structure, review, and how to write an online encyclopedia, but, sadly, it ain't. I'd amplify, but I'm tired; of more or less everything. I didn't come here to fight for the obvious, because it should be simply that: obvious. I'm glad in a way, that I am banned from Wikipedia, because it no longer stresses me as it did- unfortunately for the world, I can no longer add to the sum total of human knowledge, as Jimmy so optimistically offered. I keep a list of articles suitable for en:wp, but missing; but it doesn't shrink in the current circumstances. What a waste of an opportunity! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Personal image filter: leave it to third parties
MZMcBride wrote: If someone wants to make Conservative Wikipedia or Kid-Friendly Wikipedia or Tiananmen Square-Free Wikipedia, they're free to. They can even sell it. Contributors made that deal long ago with the open license of the sites. Wikimedia's goal is to provide free educational content to the world. The world is then free to make its own filters (personal bubbles) or even impose them on others (in the workplace, at school, at public libraries), but not with Wikimedia's help or harm. Wikimedia should remain neutral in the matter. The content is available and it is possible to fork and/or filter with technology today. (And, in fact, some places undoubtedly already filter particular Wikipedia titles, ineffective as some of these approaches surely are.) Leave the issue to third parties / a free market. If there's really demand for School-Friendly Wikipedia, someone will make it. But it's not Wikimedia's place to say who should and shouldn't have access to the sum of all human knowledge and what particular pieces of it constitute (graphic violence, pornography, etc.). MZMcBride Don't [http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Simple] and [http://schools-wikipedia.org/ Schools Wikipedia] fulfil that goal? Perhaps I've missed the point you are making, but also, perhaps, WMF should make it clear that alternatives exist, and this is not a case of censorship, rather than targetting an approriate readership. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Draft Terms of UseforReview
Sue Gardner wrote: On 8 September 2011 19:01, Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: There's a major difference between online harassment, and robust debate, although most of us can tell where we draw our own lines. Oh yikes, Phil, please don't misunderstand me! The conversations we were having were about one or two people who have been repeatedly harassing large numbers of Wikimedians for years. I am not talking about editors who engage in discussions and get a bit rude; I am talking about people who are probably seriously mentally ill. This is not a backdoor attempt to enforce kindness. We're just trying to support and protect editors against really very egregious behaviour. Thanks, Sue Maybe I have missed the point, but my lawyer's/Wikimedian's mind tells me that hiking the TOS's is not going to have a major effect, and the effort into changing the TOS is arguably outweighed by the effort expended by those who care not for subscribing to those terms. I think I've been around for long enough to know that not only are WM projects vulnerable to those with an agenda, who care not for blocks or bans, whether local or global; these people are committed to some agenda that is prepared to reject any idea of community, and proceed with that agenda as long, and as much as they can. I think we know of whom we are talking here. But changing, and toughening up the TOS is sending the right message to the wrong people. Any technically savvy journalist is going to realise the weakness in doing that, and any committed troll/vandal/disrupter is going to be able to subvert any technical measures, if only by moving his/her laptop into a new WiFi Area and crating a new account. As a principle, global blocking is OK; in practice, it's a non-starter, and changing the TOS is not going to change that unless the Foundation is going to institute legal proceedings in extreme cases, which it has never done, and brings into doubt its s.530 status. I'm aware of more than one case in which this could have been done, but hasn't. unless and until there is a real move to do that, merely changing the wording, even globally, is nothing more than a gesture. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Draft Terms of Use forReview
Sue Gardner wrote: On 8 September 2011 17:28, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: As I am speaking as a steward, I have to say that it's very good news for us. Instead of being harassed because not dealing with harassment, since the implementation of ToS that would be WMF's job. That's really good news for stewards! The purpose of the new TOS is to support the community, not to take over its work. Geoff and members of the Community department have been speaking recently with community members who are concerned about harassment on the wikis, about what kinds of actions we might collectively take to help prevent it. Making it clear that harassment is against the rules seems like an obvious step, and indeed I've seen research that suggests an inverse relationship between sites that have a TOS that prohibits harassment, and incidents of harassment on those sites. [1] Explicitly and publicly forbidding harassment on the wikis is a pretty basic and straightforward thing to do. Thanks, Sue [1] I wish I had that study at hand, but I don't. I found it, I think, through a Google Scholar search related to danah boyd. The researcher was an expert in online harassment, either at Berkman or maybe MIT. There's a major difference between online harassment, and robust debate, although most of us can tell where we draw our own lines. The difference is perhaps, largely cultural, and especially in non-English speaking communities, where translations may be inexact and externally misinterpreted. That is why I think that issues such as this should be determined at a local Wiki level rather than being seen to be imposed at a higher, and (it has to be said) Anglo-centric level. But I am also fully aware that whatever TOS are stated, some editors won't subscribe to them, for whatever reason, and others, even if aware of them, will lawyer or sock their way round them. And there is little that can be done about that at Foundation level other than setting out a principle. Well, hot dog! POV-pushers will continue to do so, and bully other editors with whom they are in disagreement, regardless of principles. But those editors will be sanctioned locally, and maybe find that there is no WM project left for their outpourings. Global bans are already available; but disruptive editors on one Wiki within the WM umbrella have gone on to be constructive editors elsewhere. I seem to remember Jimbo preaching forgiveness, and I see this proposal, unless I have misunderstood it completely, as being anathema to that. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PG rating
John Vandenberg wrote: On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 07/09/2011 11:17 AM, Bod Notbod wrote: [...] but I'm even less keen on parents telling their children they can't use Wikipedia [...] It's not the first time I see this meme expressed. Is there a reliable source somewhere that shows that (a) this represents a significant number of parents over several cultural groups, and that (b) there is serious indication that if (a) is true those same parents are going to change their stance given the proposed implementation of the image filter? Because, unless we got some serious statistical backing for those assertions, they are just smoke blowing our of asses to the sound of but think of the children! Are there are pages on English Wikipedia that should be classified as PG? [[WP:ANI]] is hardly an example to our children, is it? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PG rating
John Vandenberg wrote: On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 11:35 AM, Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: ... [[WP:ANI]] is hardly an example to our children, is it? ANI isn't a content page. As I understand it, all of Wikipedia is available to all readers. It follows that the same standard should prevail throughout, however good, or poor. And that's without exposing the lamentable ArbCom pages to the children of the world. We can, and should, be giving a better example to our future committed contributors. So it's no wonder new editors are being deterred, when existing editors are being treated with such disdain. Unless and until we can follow Jimbo's proclaimed model of tolerance and forgiveness, silence is the best model to follow. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PG rating
John Vandenberg wrote: On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Many countries have different rating schemes for movies, television, video games, and other media. Which rating systems would apply to our content? i.e. does the Australian regulatory body have jurisdiction over Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Classification_Board Yes it does, if the Australian Communications and Media Authority refers the websites to it. repeat and rinse for each country. Rubbish, and the article you cite is very poorly-written anyway. Australia is not China and does not, and cannot, restrict access to websites that are global in nature. And if it even tried to do so, I've met a few Aussies in my time who understand the Internet and would easily subvert any regulation whatsoever. Not many, it has to be said, but enough to make such a move useless. There are literally tens of thousands of pages on the English Wikipedia that would fall afoul of rating schemes of multiple countries, although they would vary significantly from country to country. .. But we already know that, so I wonder why you ask this? Sure there are a lot of possible problems, but I am wondering if we have any concrete examples for us to consider. It may inform debate to talk about real content pages on a Wikipedia project which should be rated, either by law or on a voluntary/best practice basis. Such debate would be useless. one man's meat, etc, and I don't see how Wikipedia could possibly subscribe to a lowest-common denominator type of policy, unless it wants to become an encyclopedia fit only for children, and beyond that, an encyclopedia fit only for what parents, or worse, politicians, think appropriate. I didn't fight in two World Wars- I admit that- but my parents and grandparents did- that we could have free access to information, which means all information. And any attempt at grading, rating, or whatever, is bound to be a breach of so many WP policies that if you don't know what they are, you shouldn't be an Arbitrator, an Administrator, or even an editor. Kill this idea now. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] PG rating
Fred Bauder wrote: On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Many countries have different rating schemes for movies, television, video games, and other media. Which rating systems would apply to our content? i.e. does the Australian regulatory body have jurisdiction over Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Classification_Board Yes it does, if the Australian Communications and Media Authority refers the websites to it. repeat and rinse for each country. Uh uh, there is no governor general of the United States with dictatorial power. We have an enforceable constitution in which guarantees freedom of speech. Fred Up to a point. There are so many exceptions to that principle that it's somewhat pointless to mention it in the context of a private website. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Like button
I don't understand why we need a Like button at all; it's open to personal interpretation and therefore can be in contravention of many policies, particularly NPOV. It's a bad idea, and should be strangled at birth. Feedback is much more sensibly achieved through more subtle means. Milos Rancic wrote: Thinking loudly: I think that something like like button for edits would give more reasons to continue with editing. Those who like would have to go to diffs, which would leave the button to more engaged editors and thus almost strictly internal community issue. Could be discussed more about options and technical implementation. Thoughts? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Greg Kohs and Peter Damian
Fred Bauder wrote: As someone said previously, the mailing software truncates stuff after the word From, if it begins a sentence, probably because it thinks that's part of the mail header. No conspiracy or cloak and dagger stuff, just a bug that probably ought to be looked at. I'd take this opportunity to ask if there's any other background to what Kohs is talking about there. I know that he twists stuff and he's an expert at making himself look the victim, but I've seen that particular story a couple of times and the way he was quickly kicked from IRC does look pretty bad. What, if anything, is he omitting from the story? Cheers, Craig Franklin He wanted to make a business of writing ads (articles with a favorable point of view) on Wikipedia for commercial clients, and to a certain extent, has. Fred And worse than that, has bragged about it. Even I, a fairly naive content editor, would have realised that that is anathema to the purpose of Wikipedia.. But the difference is that I am an honest contributor, and banned by ArbCom, and he is a dishonest contributor, and banned by the community. You go figure the difference. PS, Greg, please feel free to sue; I have plenty of time to defend since I can no longer deal with vandalism on WP these days. I'll even let you know the name of my attorneys for service. Make my day. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
If only I could be so sanguine; I cannot disagree with Fred's first paragraph, but as regards his second I must take issue. For a start, current events should be covered by Wikinews, and subsequent *encyclopedic treatment of those events be dealt with in analytic terms and in retrospect, by Wikipedia. That is why we have two projects, and not one. As regards the stance of the British government towards the media in this case, and in previous cases, it's clear to me that there is a dislocation between the two- and in my experience, the government has long since lost the support of the media, except in most general terms, and that is why we have the term spin-doctor. It's a two-way process, and not a new one, and where I am, I cannot see any way in which the division of reponsibility to the citizen is to be resolved. TBH, the relationship between politicians and the media, and both of them have their suspect agendas, is always going to be problematic, and all we should do as documenters of what happens is to perhaps stand back for a while, and when the dust has settled, WRITE A FUCKING ENCYCLOPEDIA! Why is that a problem? Fred Bauder wrote: Speaking of the British tabloids, of course. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/world/europe/10britain.html?nl=todaysheadlinesemc=globasasa2 The lesson for us is to not take a leading position, be topical, but to report events which have occurred and on which there is some sort of considered opinion and a set of known facts, even if it takes a day or two for them to develop. In the case of these tabloids its going to take months. The power of topical media is two-edged, seemingly exceedingly powerful, king-makers, but, as anyone familiar with our limited resources knows, quite weak if under serious attack, as is being shown in the case of the principals involved in this crisis. The British government is sick of kowtowing to them and seems to have just been waiting for an opportunity. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
Fred Bauder wrote: If only I could be so sanguine; I cannot disagree with Fred's first paragraph, but as regards his second I must take issue. For a start, current events should be covered by Wikinews, and subsequent *encyclopedic treatment of those events be dealt with in analytic terms and in retrospect, by Wikipedia. That is why we have two projects, and not one. As regards the stance of the British government towards the media in this case, and in previous cases, it's clear to me that there is a dislocation between the two- and in my experience, the government has long since lost the support of the media, except in most general terms, and that is why we have the term spin-doctor. It's a two-way process, and not a new one, and where I am, I cannot see any way in which the division of reponsibility to the citizen is to be resolved. TBH, the relationship between politicians and the media, and both of them have their suspect agendas, is always going to be problematic, and all we should do as documenters of what happens is to perhaps stand back for a while, and when the dust has settled, WRITE A FUCKING ENCYCLOPEDIA! Why is that a problem? Most of us have agendas, and this is the only major outlet most of us have access to. Fred And in what way is that an excuse to ignore the rules, or if you don't like them, seek to change them? Agenda-pushers will fall foul of OR, and other policies; those of us who merely wish Wikipedia to reflect the balance of current academic opinion, and are able to be objective about disputed points of view, should be empowered (and that is perhaps correct), to reject fringe theories, although it has to be said that such theories have traditionally been rejected out of hand on Wikpedia. I need sleep; if it matters, I'll come back. If it doesn't, I won't. Chuh! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?
George Herbert wrote: On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 3:00 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 8:30 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 4 June 2011 15:42, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I think it's a fairly dangerous precedent to have the Wikimedia Foundation involved in making individual decisions about who can and can't edit. They certainly can determine who can and can't use the servers they are custodians of. Frankly, it's not just a question of who has the power to press the BANNED button; who at the WMF do you think should or has time to sit around and review the actions of every cross-project problematic user in every language and decide? We do need to have some sort of clear mechanism to make and review complaints, and there's simply not those processes (yet) on a global level. As both a community member and someone who needs to worry about WMF resources, I want to see a distributed and scalable process for this sort of thing, one that involves, serves, and is transparent to the community. If having WMF office actions to do global (b)locks is helpful or necessary, especially for these few totally bad actors, fine; but I don't personally see that as the starting point for a sustainable system. Do you? However, as Sue stated earlier in this thread, the WMF is concerned about this issue, wants to help, and I think further ideas about the areas in which the WMF could help would be super, especially in conjunction with community efforts. -- phoebe These are all good questions, and I think that it's healthy to be careful about this. With that said, we ban (block) people by the unfortunate hundreds a day on en.wikipedia, ban (community ban) them once every few weeks, ban (arbcom ban) once every few months. We ban (BANNINATE- Poetlister grade) less than once a year. I would be appalled if anyone tried to escalate any of the normal bans we do to the Foundation for global action. But in the very rare special cases... There seems to be a confusion here between a block and a ban. Knowing the difference used to be (if it is not still) an important question on an RfA. Blocks are commonplace, for very many more reasons than bans occur, simply because a ban is directed towards either gross and continued behaviour, which may be laid at the door of an individual person, whereas blocks are temporary and do not necessarily prevent an editor creating a new account, even if a single editor is identifiable. SUL has arguably made editors' actions more visible across WMF projects, but to be honest, any savvy vandal would be well able to evade scrutiny. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?
The Register seems to be the only forum that is prepared to expose the gross injustice meted out to me as [[en:wp:User:Rodhullandemu]], so, sorry, if I need to take that route, it's a lot cheaper than employing Max Clifford. I have nothing to hide here. Best of luck with dealing with that, but in the absence of anyone prepared to negotiate, I have no alternative. Hope you all feel happy with that. Regards, Scott MacDonald wrote: -Original Message- From: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l- boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Morton Sent: 04 June 2011 01:41 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister? Not at all! That would be bad, and misses the point - I don't care at all who he is in meat space. But consider me unable to pick apart the million threads of information about his on-wiki activities. I've tried, and need a better intro. Tom Far be it from me to point anyone to the Register, but this is the best record I can find. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/19/wikipedia_civil_servant_scandal/prin t.html See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-09-15/Poetlis ter Scott ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolution: Openness
Fred Bauder wrote: While I am all about openness and journalism, I had a recent incident which made me re-think something on these lines. I had a few years back, started creating an open visible search-indexed index to ArbCom proceedings. Some editors however edit using their real names, not something I would necessarily recommend if you end up at ArbCom and then a search on your name, get's a top Goog because of an index like mine. People will common names could simply say it's someone else, but people with rare names like Dror Kamir for example, might have some intrepid employer say, Oh Gee you were involved in that whole versus big controversy in Wikipedia, I don't think your personality would be a good fit here I can see it happening in this connected age, I have done it myself when propositioning a new client, to see what's out there on them. I decided to make my index invisible temporarily while I mull this over more. Will Johnson I've noticed that old crap from years ago doesn't show on on your eBay feedback rating. I appreciate that. And, frankly, if someone is doing good work on Wikipedia now, who cares about some big blowup years ago? Fred An excellent point. Someone please let ArbCom know this. User:Rodhullandemu ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Request for moderation of Dan Rosenthal and AndrewGarrett
Oh dear. In the hurly-burly of Wikipedia especially, trenchant, even strong, language seems to be accepted from some but not from others. Some give and take should be allowed but when a top 100 contributor is desysopped for little else by WP's ArbCom, who knows where the limits may be? This is a mailing list, and not a discussion forum or chatroom, where little really persists for that long, so perhaps higher standards might prevail. However, if the comments were that gross (and I don't see that they are), a temporary moderation might be seen to be fair by some, although my gut feeling tells me that a warning should siffice, lest such a reaction be seen to be punitive. wp:User:Rodhullandemu (retired, although I can't even put that on my own user page at present!) Virgilio A. P. Machado wrote: After a cool off period of about 48 hours and considerable reflection, it is my conviction that the posts of two above mentioned editors should be moderated from now on. Andrew Garrett wrote, Sun Apr 3 10:13:26 UTC 2011, Your messages are deliberately obnoxious, unpleasant, and off-topic to boot. it is unclear what messages he is referring to, but these are not acceptable terms to classify anybody's messages, unless it is acceptable that others classify Andrew Garrett's or anybody else's messages as deliberately obnoxious, unpleasant, and off-topic to boot. and therefore asks him or them to Cut it out, please. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. After engaging in a friendly and polite exchange with Dan Rosenthal, he saw fit to send me an e-mail, Sun, 3 Apr 2011 05:26, concerning [Foundation-l] Wiki-revolution, using language unbecoming to a gentleman, that I'll not repeat. This kind of behavior cannot and should not be tolerated from members of this list. Should everybody start sending unspeakable messages to other members of the list? I do have experience of exchanging off list messages with other members, but those were used for clarification, to reach a mutual understanding and establish new bridges and avenues of communication. They were used to improve relations with other members and, as a result, improve the peaceful and cordial exchanges that should take place on this list, despite any disagreements and differences of opinion. There can never be any disagreements or differences of opinion as far as the level of education and manners used on this list, and towards members of this list both on and off list. This is no army barracks, farm stables, or brawl among drunkards on the town fairgrounds. As Dan Rosenthal might wish to present evidence that no harm was intended or done, by making public his message, I authorize that he so does. I have no trouble in reproducing Dan Rosenthal's message on this list, provided he grants me, here, in public, on this list, authorization to do it. I believe that Dan Rosenthal's action called for more severe sanctions, but I have many reservations concerning all sorts of so called severe sanctions on this list and Wikimedia projects in general. We all know how easily they can be circunvented by the less scrupulous. Therefore, as in the case of Andrew Garrett, my request is that their posts to be moderated from now on. That should be sufficient to prevent Dan Rosenthal from coughing again on this list and hopefully at least make him hesitate before sending unworthy messages off list. Sincerely, Virgilio A. P. Machado (Vapmachado) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: A lack of newbies that stick
We've not had SUL (Single User Login) for that long, and my impression is that this will tend to inflate the number of registered accounts compared with the number of active accounts. Many such editors will still stay on to edit their home wiki, without ever editing WP, except perhaps as a test Has this been taken into account? Phil Bence Damokos wrote: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 5:33 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Certainly someone else can do more formal research and come up with actual numbers. But as for me I think it's ridiculous at worst and premature at best to say that new users are becoming less sticky when, it seems to me, they have in fact never been particularly sticky. The study examined those people who have registered and made at least one edit, and the ratio of the people who stuck on after their first edit has gone down, which is the basis of concern. (There are and have always been many more people who have registered but never got to edit, and many who never registered but still edited, it would be interesting to see if there is any change in proportion over time.) Best regards, Bence ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Wikidata
Marc Riddell wrote: on 11/24/10 6:10 PM, wjhon...@aol.com at wjhon...@aol.com wrote: Would this project answer the question I am trying to address today? Which American actors died in 1970? There does not appear to me, to be any obvious way of using the built-in search engine to answer this question. Searching for Actor 1970 generates a lot of false positives, an overwhelming number. Is there no way to find the intersection of two categories ? W W, Could it de done with a Category: 1970 Deaths - Actors, or some such thing? Marc Try http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php plug in values en, Deaths in 1970 and American Actors. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Wikidata
Marc Riddell wrote: on 11/24/10 7:25 PM, wjhon...@aol.com at wjhon...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 11/24/2010 4:11:03 PM Pacific Standard Time, michaeldavi...@comcast.net writes: I just pulled up the Articles on two actors who I know died in 1970. One was in the Category English Film Actors and the other in American Film Actors. The category intersect PHP is very finicky. You have to use the right case. American film actors and 1970 deaths NOW I get a list of 61 articles W Unless we're both missing something, I think you've hit on an important issue the tech people should look at. I would make the encyclopedia an even better tool for research. M Agreed, Toolserver is pretty much take it as you find it, although full marks to its contributors for making the effort. However, it is, like some stuff around here, unsupported by Wikimedia other than they host it. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcement: Mike Godwin leaves the Wikimedia Foundation
K. Peachey wrote: On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 3:45 AM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi folks, I want to let you know that as of this Friday, October 22, 2010, Mike Godwin will be leaving his role as General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation. ...snip... The search for his successor will begin immediately. It's being conducted by the recruiting firm m|Oppenheim. ...snip... -- Sue Gardner Just a matter of inquiry, why didn't the search start when Mike handed in his notice, compared to now when he has left? With a role like this wouldn't it make sense to have it refilled as soon as possible to give the best chance of a change over period? -Peachey I think it's clear in the original announcement that this isn't a clean break, but will be phased pending appointment of a replacement for Mike. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Liu Xiaobo
Peter Damian wrote: I don't know why such fuss has been made in the media about this. Under Chinese law, Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/461876 His own community has delivered a verdict upon him: he is a criminal. He deserves 'fair treatment' no more than the trolls who have disrupted the Wikipedia deserve so-called 'fair treatment'. Those who violate community norms, such as Xiaobo (in the case of China) or many of the disruptive elements who create havoc on the project by their offensive comments and offsite attacks. The Chinese government imposed a blackout on news of the award: quite right. This is exactly what would happen on Wikipedia, by means of blocks in article space, talk pages and email access. More power to the community! Peter This is so naive a post that I can only believe that someone has hijacked your account, and I can't wait for your amendments to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolpuddle_Martyrs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi I expect you might have an apology and weakly-argued defence tomorrow, when you might have sobered up, but right now you are on thin ice in epistemological terms and are closer to a 17-year old newly-radicalised student than a considered scholar. Shame on you, and that's without discussing the legal system of China. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Liu Xiaobo
Nathan wrote: On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: Peter Damian wrote: I don't know why such fuss has been made in the media about this. Under Chinese law, Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/461876 His own community has delivered a verdict upon him: he is a criminal. He deserves 'fair treatment' no more than the trolls who have disrupted the Wikipedia deserve so-called 'fair treatment'. Those who violate community norms, such as Xiaobo (in the case of China) or many of the disruptive elements who create havoc on the project by their offensive comments and offsite attacks. The Chinese government imposed a blackout on news of the award: quite right. This is exactly what would happen on Wikipedia, by means of blocks in article space, talk pages and email access. More power to the community! Peter This is so naive a post that I can only believe that someone has hijacked your account, and I can't wait for your amendments to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolpuddle_Martyrs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi I expect you might have an apology and weakly-argued defence tomorrow, when you might have sobered up, but right now you are on thin ice in epistemological terms and are closer to a 17-year old newly-radicalised student than a considered scholar. Shame on you, and that's without discussing the legal system of China. You understood, I'm sure, that he was making an exaggerated comparison between the Chinese government's approach to public debate and Wikipedia's governance? He clearly believes that Liu Xiaobo has been mistreated (which he has been), and also that he and others have been mistreated by Wikipedia in a conceptually similar fashion. If you think he actually believes Liu Xiaobo is a criminal deviant, I think you missed the point. Nathan He claims to be a philosopher, not a satirist. Meanwhile, any comparison between the Chinese judicial system and Wikipedia can only be [[WP:GODWIN'S LAW|insulting]]. I regard the post as utterly misguided, and not the first I have seen in recent days. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Liu Xiaobo
SlimVirgin wrote: On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 16:11, Phil Nash phn...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: I expect you might have an apology and weakly-argued defence tomorrow, when you might have sobered up, but right now you are on thin ice in epistemological terms and are closer to a 17-year old newly-radicalised student than a considered scholar. Shame on you, and that's without discussing the legal system of China. He was being ironic. Jonathan Swift was at least plausible in that regard (although satire rather than irony), because his writing was so obviously pointed that the clever people got the message and the stupids didn't. Damian failed in being inadequately excessive, perhaps, and ended up being plausible without going further. I realise that subtlety is an artform, but it doesn't always show itself in mere words. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Liu Xiaobo
Fred Bauder wrote: You understood, I'm sure, that he was making an exaggerated comparison between the Chinese government's approach to public debate and Wikipedia's governance? He clearly believes that Liu Xiaobo has been mistreated (which he has been), and also that he and others have been mistreated by Wikipedia in a conceptually similar fashion. If you think he actually believes Liu Xiaobo is a criminal deviant, I think you missed the point. Nathan Well, do we actually prevent some viewpoint from being expressed adequately? How about a list? Fred Bauder We shouldn't, but a plausible argument, however extreme, if not intended to be so, should not be assumed to be taken seriously without satire/satire tags. Humour and point can be so subtle as to be invisible, and it behoves those making the point to either (a) make it so grossly obvious as to be beyond discussion or (b) flag it. That avoids misunderstanding, and particularly from cheap journalists who will leap upon any apparent infelicity of language to hang an article therefrom. If Damian wanted to make a point, there was no need to couch it in such oblique language; Wittgenstein he is not. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Ryan Kaldari wrote: I thought you were awarding the post a score of 0 :) It would be all too cheap a jibe to attribute to a self-proclaimed philosopher an ignorance of scientific method and assert that blind adoption of the continuity principle is contrary to that method; however, it is fair to say that his interests largely lie in medieval philosophy and may not reach as far as the works of Karl Popper, let alone the Renaissance. So I will not level that accusation. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Growth vs. maintenance
Peter Jacobi wrote:
The problem I see most, is Wikipedia articles becoming stale. No
corrections to defects, even those already been identified on talk
pages and in maintenance templates. The worst 20% of Wikipedia just
doesn't get better. Perhaps the entire worse half of Wikipedia.
It will if people are prepared to tackle it. I've just spent about three
months adding {{geocoords}} to most of the ~7500 UK articles lacking them,
and there is only a handful left. I note that we have over 10,000 articles
with {{deadlink}}s, and that is my next project. Some assistance would be
welcome, before I go totally insane.
___
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Re: [Foundation-l] How much of Wikipedia is vandalized? 0.4% ofArticles
Gregory Kohs wrote: Riddle me this... Is the edit below vandalism? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arch_Coaldiff=255482597oldid=255480884 Did the edit take a page and make it worse? Or, did it make the page a better available revision than the version immediately prior to it? It wasn't vandalism, and wasn't labelled as such, merely a change of wording, and perhaps emphasis. In the case of dispute, it should have gone to the Talk page, but doesn't seem to have done so. Many editors undo and revert on the basis of felicity of language and emphasis, and unless it becomes an issue is an epiphenomenon of the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. so I can't see how this is a good example of anything in particular. Methinks the Wikipedia community has a long way to go in learning to differentiate between a better encyclopedia and a worse encyclopedia before we take the step to try to define vandalism. Then, after we've done all that, there might be some remaining value in trying to quantify vandalism, as we've defined it. With multiplicitous interests being represented, all of them valid, and with very little general intersection, terms such as better and worse have little meaning, in my view, in that context. Nobody is qualified to make that assessment. Until then, for God's sake, Sue Gardner, do not gleefully run off publicizing that only 0.4% of Wikipedia's articles are vandalized. Unless it is said that a recent informal study has shown that; I don't think Robert claimed any rigorous validity for the work he did; but at least he's done it, and opened a debate. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] antisocial production
Marc Riddell wrote: on 6/27/09 6:35 PM, David Moran at fordmadoxfr...@gmail.com wrote: While not exactly science, having gone to more than one Wikipedia picnic to break bread with my fellow contributors ... the conclusions seem pretty accurate to me. DM And, until that changes, the Project will grow only in size, but not in depth. Marc Riddell I wonder how much of that is due to cultural differences, taking the Pokemon vs Medieval Philosophy difference as one example? Editors have multifarious interests, and IMO, the worst of them tend to discount outside interests, particularly when it comes to popular culture, as irrelevant. I'd suggest that NPOV suggests that within a historical perspective, it is not for us now to judge such issues, after all, it's not as if we are short of disk space for our articles. I'm reminded of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Cultures but these days, we have many more than two cultures represented in en:wiki, so diversity should not only be expected, but encouraged; this, to me, means that editors should occasionally step outside their comfort zone and see what is going on elsewhere. Perhaps, since I watchlist about 1600 articles of various types, I get an overview denied to, or rejected by, others, but then also, perhaps I have too much time on my hands. Ho hum. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: pt:wiki policies
Foundation-l list admin wrote: -- Forwarded message -- From: Virgilio A. P. Machado v...@fct.unl.pt Date: Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:29 AM Subject: pt:wiki policies To: foundation-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org Dear Sirs, Yesterday ( http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pedidos_a_administradores/Discuss%C3%A3o_de_bloqueio#NH ), while discussing a private case, whose full details are confidential I described a strict hypothetical case as follows: Suppose a tetraplegic girl learns how to use a computer and finds out about Wikipedia. After registering as a user she does all sort of trampling. Would there be any administrator willing to block her from editing Wikipedia? So far, three administrators, one of them a bureaucrat and member of arbitration committee have answered YES. The administrator bureaucrat later quoted Wikimedia:Non discrimination policy, explaining that that policy did NOT allow them to treat editors differently, based on their [...] medical condition. Wikimedia:Code of Conduct Policy was also quoted. I wonder if you would care to comment on all of the above. Sincerely, Virgilio A. P. Machado I don't think it's a case of discrimination; presumably her physical disability does not impair her mental faculty, and she is aware of what she is doing- and certainly should be after a number of warnings. If it's just a case of being unable to communicate effectively, we do have users on en:wiki with similar issues, and have persuaded them to be adopted by willing mentors. However, the bottom line to me is whether the harm to the encyclopedia (willed or not) outweighs the benefit of having that person editing. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Attribution survey, first results
Gregory Kohs wrote: *phoebe ayers* phoebe.wiki at gmail.com writes: ++ I'm not sure there's any way to get a non-self-selected survey about anything on the projects due to anonymity concerns. ++ I'm a 17-year veteran of implementing professional quantitative survey research. Self-selection bias is a very complicated study, but there are some fairly accessible and intuitive techniques one may implement to create a thoughtful survey of a target population which minimizes self-selection bias concerns. This allows the stakeholders to focus on the challenge of deriving meaning from the response data rather than feeling nausea over the sampling methodology. I am willing to give, pro bono, 45 minutes of telephone consulting time to any Wikimedia Foundation staff member who is attached to this particular survey project, on the condition that they will be open and attentive to the possibility that a properly-designed and fairly-executed survey may not return results that foster their preconceived desires Except of course, that such a survey would arguably not have preconceived desires. So much for empiricism! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Attribution survey, first results
Gregory Kohs wrote: *Phil Nash* pn007a2145 at blueyonder.co.uk said: ++ Except of course, that such a survey would arguably not have preconceived desires. So much for empiricism! ++ I offered to give some pro bono guidance on overcoming (to a degree) self-selection bias, even among an anonymity-heightened population. I didn't say that I would be involved in the actual design and execution of the survey. So much for civility! I was not intending to be uncivil, merely to point out that surveys are often designed to elicit a particular response rather than cold, hard, facts. Apologies if I conveyed a contrary impression, but having been a serious victim of such a survey, I am somewhat sensitive to the weaknesses therein. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law is that it is not generally permitted to have a political purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any repression, genocide etc, would appear to be anathema to a charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations has used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims, however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial projects might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's been put forward seems to militate against that construction. From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 2:12:25 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial 2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com: A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc. No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every repression (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had better none, in my opinion. (Yes, in other cases I argued and would argue that it is better to have something than nothing, but in this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it) Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box. The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would do for a start. See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example. Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest. - d. I support this project, and don't think it should get pushed off into some obscure corner of the internet. We should host it. We should host it because we stand against totalitarian repression; and reject the position that some knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of totalitarian repression, is to be repressed and not readily available. Fred Bauder ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.0/1862 - Release Date: 23/12/2008 12:08 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:43, Phil Nash wrote: Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law is that it is not generally permitted to have a political purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any repression, genocide etc, would appear to be anathema to a charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations has used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims, however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial projects might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's been put forward seems to militate against that construction. I fail to see how simply presenting a list of peoples' names and telling their stories constitutes taking partisan sides in political disputes. It's educating people about the impact of these events, plain and simple. -- Kurt Weber http://blog.kurtweber.us k...@kurtweber.us That would be fine, up to a point. On the other hand, putting all that under a POV title within the WMF umbrealls is quite a different issue, and not one, I think, which would be palatable to the WMF, for reasons I've already outlined. Kurt, as you now should realise, politics at any level is a subtle and complex business, and my personal opinion is that you should stick to marching bands. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] and what if...
Mike Godwin wrote: Anthony writes: I'm sure they're in the process of changing their review system to take these issues into account. At the same time, requiring *all* images to be found illegal before taking action, would not be a good idea. In this particular instance, however, it is worth noting that the image in question has been widely available, both on the Internet and offline, and in fact remains widely available. The fact that a particular image has been presumptively legal for more than three decades necessarily informs any responsible consideration of the decision to block it today. If one is familiar with the history of child-pornography prosecutions (as I happen to be), it's clear that these controversial album covers (not just the Virgin Killer cover, but that of Blind Faith and others) are not the material the child- porn statutes were designed to discourage and suppress. Moreover, since the album covers themselves are worthy of encyclopedic discussion, it seems important to add a context requirement to any judgment of illegality. Indeed, the Internet Watch Foundation itself acknowledges the importance of context in its public statement about the affair: However, the IWF Board has today (9 December 2008) considered these findings and the contextual issues involved in this specific case and, in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list. If the IWF thinks contextual issues are important, who are we to say otherwise? --Mike Whilst I would agree with that, context does not appear to have contributed to their original decision. One wonders how many similar cases there have been in the last twelve years of their existence. I instinctively dislike prior restraint, although this is not such a case, but I am even more opposed to restraint long after the cat is out of the bag, as it were. All in all, I perceive this as having done the IWF no favours, which, sadly, dilutes the good work that they may do- although, of course, being totally unaccountable, we have only their word for that. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Site Notices Phase 2 - Annual Fundraiser 2008
Robert Rohde wrote: On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Thomas Dalton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/11/27 David Gerard [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 2008/11/27 Thomas Dalton [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Wikipedia is a charity ? People always say non-profit when describing WMF, is it a charity? The two terms are different. (In the UK, the WMF would probably be considered charitable, I don't know what the requirements are in the US.) The bottom of every page on en:wp says it's a charity! (I put that text there, after precise phrasing was worked out on the comcom list. If it's wrong we should change it ...) And, in fact, wikimediafoundation.org says nonprofit charitable organization. I don't know why people generally say non-profit instead of charity, then - charity would be more precise and would probably be better perceived. I agree that the WMF fits the legal definition of a charity, but when one says charity the first thing that comes to my mind are organizations that take donations (often including food or clothes) for the primary purpose of redistributing most of them to the needy. You know, the Red Cross, United Way, Goodwill, food banks, etc. Obviously the WMF's mission and the use of their income is somewhat different from that, even though promoting the dissemination of knowledge is ultimately a charitable purpose. So at least in my mind calling the WMF a charity feels less precise and more confusing. Just my two cents. Your reaction may vary. -Robert Rohde Certainly in UK law establishments with educational objectives may qualify as having charitable purposes. They may even generate what would normally be termed profits, but the law requires them to plough back those funds into their fundamental purpose, failing which they would lose all the tax advantages. I don't see Wikipedia being that much different, but then I'm not an expert on US tax law. The problem may be that charity also has a connotation in some places of being somewhat second-class and therefore almost pejorative. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Trademarks (Was: A localchapter withoutWikimedians)
Mike Godwin wrote: Phil Nash writes: I don't want to seem naive but it is unclear to me how this applies to an essentially non-profit organisation; if you can help me out with a link, I'd be grateful. Thanks. I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you under the impression that non-profit organizations, e.g. the Red Cross, don't have commercially valuable trademarks, and don't protect them? What gives you that impression? --Mike No, put like that, it's obvious and I should have seen it. I am slow sometimes. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
